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Comment on by Twan van Elk https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2020/06/14373/#comment-134149
Fri, 05 Jun 2020 12:40:59 +0000https://www.zylstra.org/blog/?p=14373#comment-134149I think it also depends on who is driving the truck. Saw the same guy now a few times, and since then it is somewhat better here. (There was a time when they would ring the doorbell -or not- and just immediately walk away again, oftentimes not even bothering to fill out the form that they stuffed down the mailbox.)
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Comment on Bye Facebook, Reprise by Lilia Efimova https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2020/06/bye-facebook-reprise/#comment-134148
Fri, 05 Jun 2020 12:32:32 +0000https://www.zylstra.org/blog/?p=14368#comment-134148Well, it is a bit naive to assume that for me and many others on FB it is the main lens to see and experience the world. There is a lot that wrong with it and a lot of people using it are aware of that. They usually have other reasons than being blinded by algorithms to stay there. Echo chambers exist not only on big platforms and recognising them is important regardless of where your data sits.

Anyway, good luck with your indieweb journey. I hope to see more posts on using those tools for connections outside of the tech crowd and for working on good causes next to doing business. The world can do with inspiring examples and practical how-tos of making a difference without relying on corporate monsters – at least with this one we should be on the same page 🙂

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Comment on by Peter Rukavina https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2020/06/14373/#comment-134147
Fri, 05 Jun 2020 12:26:23 +0000https://www.zylstra.org/blog/?p=14373#comment-134147There is something about DHL, isn’t there! One Christmas they failed abjectly at communication, leaving us without holiday parcels. On Christmas Eve I tracked down the location of the local depot — not disclosed anywhere by DHL — and lucked into finding the last employee still there. He hunted around and found my parcels for me, and saved Christmas in the process.
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Comment on Bye Facebook, Reprise by Ton Zijlstra https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2020/06/bye-facebook-reprise/#comment-134145
Fri, 05 Jun 2020 09:32:23 +0000https://www.zylstra.org/blog/?p=14368#comment-134145“But I guess we operate in different worlds” is precisely my reason, as FB is an active instrument in creating a situation that might make people feel that, because it deliberately and continuously decides what you see in their platform (which thus isn’t a platform anymore), including what you see if you go to the timeline of a friend. Of course public interest is politically loaded, I suppose it is the very definition of it. Thinking FB isn’t, is the crux imo. It very much is, although it will deny it at every turn, and that makes it toxic and malicious. In short, as someone said to me in some other channel “Facebook *appears* necessary to Facebook users because Facebook makes it very difficult to see the world outside Facebook, but there *is* such a world and anyone can live in it.” With FB and Whatsapp now deleted from my channels, I’ll see how that plays out.
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Comment on Bye Facebook, Reprise by Lilia Efimova https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2020/06/bye-facebook-reprise/#comment-134144
Fri, 05 Jun 2020 08:18:09 +0000https://www.zylstra.org/blog/?p=14368#comment-134144I guess the main difference is that I do not see that in terms of change and accountability governments are much better than corporations. Not in theory or by definition, but in practice.

Founding a school within the rules and laws defined by the state (= political parties in power) does not change the system any more than creating a group on FB. At least with FB you are free to leave and come back as you wish, which is not the case with Dutch educational system.

But I guess we operate in different worlds. I wish I would be convinced that leaving FB is a path to a better world. But there is an internet consultation for a new homeschooling law right now and it will bring little good, sold to the public under the labels of “public service” and “right on education”. Homeschooling community uses FB to mobilise whatever instruments they have next to voting to make a difference. So, choosing between toxic of FB or toxic that families with kids experience just because their interests deviate from outdated and politically loaded “public interest”, I go for the lesser evil.

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Comment on Bye Facebook, Reprise by Ton Zijlstra https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2020/06/bye-facebook-reprise/#comment-134134
Thu, 04 Jun 2020 18:46:09 +0000https://www.zylstra.org/blog/?p=14368#comment-134134And yes that is uncomfortable and inconvenient. Which is a signal I think of having gone too far down the rabbithole.

And yes, like you I see convincing others to come away with you is hard. I suspect mostly because it was viable to assume that if they don’t move I wouldn’t either. Going away is the one piece of information that lacks in the equation if all we do is suggest to go someplace else.

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Comment on Bye Facebook, Reprise by Ton Zijlstra https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2020/06/bye-facebook-reprise/#comment-134133
Thu, 04 Jun 2020 18:44:09 +0000https://www.zylstra.org/blog/?p=14368#comment-134133I disagree with that comparison, Facebook is not like the schooling system, and not like a troubled neighbourhood. There are many tools out there, which are free, where you could communicate with others like you do on Facebook. There’s a cost in moving there, and activating others to join, but like there was nothing holding back people to come to Facebook from whatever YASN they were before (remember Hyves, it imploded in months from like 80% penetration), there’s nothing holding you back to go someplace else. It’s a company, a company with a crap proposition (which they make easy for you to ignore because they gloss over the crappy parts, and have the convenient parts alwasy facing you). Which is why a comparison with the schooling system is false imo. That is a public service system, that you can escape if you can afford to, but which you could work to change as well. Founding a school is among them. Facebook is a company, not a public service and thus fundamentally different from the counter examples you give. There is nothing you can do to change FB other than become a deciding shareholder. Your only choice is to not do business with them if you think they’re crap.
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Comment on Bye Facebook, Reprise by Lilia Efimova https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2020/06/bye-facebook-reprise/#comment-134131
Thu, 04 Jun 2020 15:51:25 +0000https://www.zylstra.org/blog/?p=14368#comment-134131I guess most of our American friends are dealing with the question “what can I do when voting is not enough”…

Most of the people I have on FB I don’t have in any other places (and with some of them, like family and close friends I tried that for years). I’ve seen how Dutch homeschooling community has moved from hardly working mailing lists to FB and how many other channels were tried and didn’t work for that despite the fact that many of the same people have concerns about the digital presence and surveillance. I see similar processes with permaculture and gardening people.

I do not see FB as something “for fun”, it became one of the baseline communication infrastructures that work for the mainstream public and not only tech-savvy people. Yes it is far from free, but way better in terms of access to information than TV, newspapers or relying on email and phonecalls from friends. Only people who have their own indieweb tools or can afford lack of connectivity can leave big platforms like FB or Google.

May be “privilege” is not the right word, but let’s say it is a choice that serves personal interests of not being part of toxic environment and does little for those in the community who can not afford that choice. It is similar to choosing for homeschooling our kids – we can afford it and shields our family from what we see as toxic in the system but does not do much to make education better for those who do not have that option.

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Comment on Bye Facebook, Reprise by Ton Zijlstra https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2020/06/bye-facebook-reprise/#comment-134128
Thu, 04 Jun 2020 13:31:28 +0000https://www.zylstra.org/blog/?p=14368#comment-134128I did that, with my Facebook account in the past two years, making a point to only post constructively. The issue with FB is that that won’t fix things, not like it might by becoming a constructive force in your city neighbourhood. If I am in a physical place with toxic leadership I probably can’t pick up and leave but can vote. If I am dealing with a toxic company the only way available is to not give them my business. I won’t be able to vote against Zuckerberg after all. FB is not a political entity, and has shown in the past 14 years to not be willing to learn to be a constructive place, right from the original “dumb f*cks” comment. Leaving Facebook is not privilege, anyone can do that. Leaving Facebook and expecting everyone to follow or to run their own blog would be. I have no such expectation. And yes I do have my own blog, but if I hadn’t there are still plenty of spaces out there that are free and currently not as toxic as FB is that offer similar options. Fact is, all of the people I interact with on FB, I also interact with in various other channels. I don’t need FB for it, I just thought I did for a long time. Rather, I’d turn it around, that it’s a sort-of privilege to be able to afford having fun in a toxic swamp, thinking it won’t be affecting you otherwise. As that seems to be ignoring the active damage the company is doing, while we’re having a friendly chat on one of their platforms. At worst it may become a sort-of codependency.
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Comment on Bye Facebook, Reprise by Lilia Efimova https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2020/06/bye-facebook-reprise/#comment-134127
Thu, 04 Jun 2020 12:41:00 +0000https://www.zylstra.org/blog/?p=14368#comment-134127Interestingly, my choices during this period are the opposite – I started to write and to be more where the people are, valuing the connection and conversations more than my feelings about the space where it happens. Moving away from FB now feels like moving from a toxic neighbourhood in the city, just because you can, instead of staying and doing something to make it less toxic for everyone else or helping others to create better spaces.

Yes, voting with your feet is a way to make an impact. But, thinking about all the friends in physical places with toxic leadership, I wonder how much it is also a privilege.

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Comment on by Ton Zijlstra https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2020/06/14362/#comment-134118
Wed, 03 Jun 2020 20:36:25 +0000https://www.zylstra.org/blog/?p=14362#comment-134118My grandmother had something similar. A big pile of notebooks in the cupboard. Born in the 19-00’s she never moved away from paper. In those notes she would keep track on prices “150 kg of coals delivered, now 7cts, expensive!” “put 12 portions of beans in the freezer, 20 of rhubarb. Spinach almost finished”. “Neighbour came, said X had broken an ankle”, or some such. Anthropologically/socially highly interesting probably. For us as family it was also a source of fun, because she would make pointed remarks and observations as well.
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Comment on by Peter Rukavina https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2020/06/14362/#comment-134117
Wed, 03 Jun 2020 20:27:27 +0000https://www.zylstra.org/blog/?p=14362#comment-134117My father kept a day log from 1966 until his death last year. The early years are notebooks; in later years he switched to using a PC, and then, later, a Mac. He kept his digital log entries encrypted inside one big Word file; after he died I was able to crack the encryption on this file and gain access to more that 30 years worth of his notes. I thought that I would find great answers to pressing questions there; instead I found “put gas in the lawnmower” and “trip to the dentist” and on and on and on. His log was for him, as yours is for you; the encryption protected us from the mundane, not the scandalous.
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Comment on by AndySylvester https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2020/06/14362/#comment-134115
Wed, 03 Jun 2020 19:16:34 +0000https://www.zylstra.org/blog/?p=14362#comment-134115@ton thanks for this update! I have found that keeping my log updated during the day helps me feel more settled, in-control, and that when I feel overwhelmed, updating the log calms me.

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Comment on by jeremycherfas https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2020/06/14359/#comment-134103
Tue, 02 Jun 2020 20:27:50 +0000https://www.zylstra.org/blog/?p=14359#comment-134103@ton It is a well known scientific fact that fruit is ripe for a bird the day before a human thinks it is ripe.

For me, that’d rule out anything I’d have to run, even if locally, before I can access the data. Running a full web stack for some personal / local storage would feel a bit “weird” to me – but then again, my needs are mine. For me, cross-device without needing to set up is a big need, so that means that whatever tool I use, needs to store its data in plain text somewhere.

Funny thing how different people have such different wildly outlooks, when you think of it.